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A fair, ambitious and binding deal is needed more urgently than ever. Climate science is more compelling by the day. Impacts are coming harder and faster. Disastrous flooding in Pakistan, heat waves and forest fires in Russia and hottest recorded temperatures around the globe, amongst other devastating climate-related events, all point to the need for urgent action. Levels of warming once thought to be safe, may well not be, 1.5˚C is the new 2˚C.

Negotiations Post-Copenhagen
Copenhagen was a watershed moment for public interest and support for climate action – and people have not lost interest. More people in more countries than ever have put their governments on notice that they expect a fair,
ambitious and binding global deal to be agreed urgently. Trust-building is essential after the disappointment of Copenhagen. Developed country leadership must be at the core of trust building efforts. Countries must show
their commitment to the UNFCCC process by driving it forward with political will and flexible positions, rather than endless rounds of repetitive negotiations. Many countries are troublingly pessimistic for Cancun, and are working to lower expectations. While others, including countries most vulnerable to climate change, maintain high expectations.

Challenges ahead of Cancun
There are many challenges to getting a full fair, ambitious and binding deal at Cancun, including:

Lack of a shared vision for the ultimate objective of the agreement, and the equitable allocation of the remaining carbon budget and emissions reduction/limitation commitments;

Sharp divisions on the legal form of an eventual outcome;

Failure of the US Senate to pass comprehensive legislation this year; and

Current economic difficulties facing many countries, which make it difficult to mobilize the substantial commitments to long-term climate finance needed as part of any ambitious agreement.

Positive moves afoot
However, more and more countries, both developing and developed, are stepping up their efforts to pursue low-carbon development and adaptation, despite the absence of an international agreement. This can be seen in a variety of ways:

Investments in renewable energies have continued their exponential growth, increasing to 19% of global energy consumed;

Progressive countries are working to move the negotiations forward;

There is a growing perception that low-carbon and climate-resilient development is the only option to sustainably ensure the right to development and progress in poverty reduction.

So, what does a pathway forward look like?

Firstly we must learn the lessons of Copenhagen. The “nothing’s agreed until everything’s agreed” dynamic from Copenhagen could mean that nothing would be agreed in Cancun. An agreement in Cancun should instead be a balanced and significant step toward reaching a full fair, ambitious & binding deal at COP 17 in South Africa. This will require parties to work together in good faith to create sufficient gains at Cancun, and a clear roadmap to South Africa. This paper outlines how that could be achieved.

~~To secure a strong outcome in Paris that facilitates ambitious climate action on the ground, a key pillar will be a “finance package” that covers both the pre- and the post-2020 period. Developed countries will have to demonstrate how they are meeting past promises (in particular the $100bn target). For the period after 2020, strong provisions on finance in the Paris Agreement are needed to enable developing countries to enhance their ambition beyond what they can do on their own, laying out the mitigation potential that could be unlocked with scaled-up financial resources. Also, developing countries, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable countries, will require increasing amounts of financial support to adapt to a changing climate and cope with the impacts. This submission outlines the Climate Action Network’s view on the main elements of this finance package for Paris.

~~The gap between the need for adaptation and loss and damage finance and the current finance provided or committed is large and growing. It has been estimated that each year US$150 billion will be needed for adaptation and loss and damage by 2025, even if warming is kept below 2 degrees. When compared with the currently provided sum of approximately $20-23bn per year and the current warming trajectory of approximately 4 degrees, the scale of the challenge is clear. There is also a growing gap in mitigation finance. Finance for mitigation needs to increase urgently in order to keep warming below 1.5 degrees.

This briefing paper identifies a number of potential new sources of climate finance. Some of these “new” sources of finance have been under discussion for a number of years within the High Level Advisory Group on Finance, the Leading Group on Innovative Finance and others. They include a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), a fossil fuel levy (or Carbon Majors Levy), carbon pricing for international aviation and maritime, domestic or regional carbon pricing/carbon markets, and others. If the political will is generated to fully realise these new sources of finance, they could fill the finance gap that exist.

~~The aim of this paper is to highlight both the importance and the potential of the Finance for sustainable Development (FFsD) process in advancing global efforts to tackle climate change. At present, FFsD does not specifically address climate change among or through the issues and mechanisms that are being discussed within the process – namely international public finance, domestic resource mobilisation (tax and private capital), international private finance, trade, and debt and systemic issues that form the Monterrey Consensus on FFD at the basis of the Addis Ababa Accord.

About the Climate Action Network

The Climate Action Network (CAN) is a worldwide network of over 950 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in over 110 countries working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels.

CAN members work to achieve this goal through information exchange and the coordinated development of NGO strategy on international, regional, and national climate issues. [+]